28 July 2015

From Gill to Kempton...?

Still tidying up my friend's Kempton family file and, as ever, I keep getting sidetracked into following another line down....

This time I was confirming information that I'd found on the Yelland family tree on Ancestry, and going down the Kempton/Bayes line in Norfolk.  Most people were being co-operative and allowing themselves to be found relatively easily and I moved down to the Gill family in Norwich.

Thanks to the wonderful FreeReg people I have found lots of Gills and noted them accordingly.  But now I'm a bit confused.  Henry Gill, son of William and Elizabeth (nee Bayes) was born in Norwich in 1842 and learned to be a tailor.

In November 1881 he married Alice Boreham in Thorpe-next-Norwich and they begat four little Gills in Norwich during the next seven years.

And then the family went to Canada in 1891: to Montreal, to be precise.  But.  Henry sailed in the name of George Kempton, and the rest of the family also had their surname changed to Kempton.

They moved on to Winnipeg, in Manitoba, and Henry/George & Alice begat a further three children - all named Kempton.  And the family remained Kempton, with all trace of Gill obliterated.

Now I know that anyone can change their name, but I have to admit that I'm intrigued......

More soon.

5 July 2015

How many Legges......?

Meanwhile, in the tidying-up department, I thought I'd check through my Kempton file for extraneous personnel.  And discovered quite a few Legges who could come under the category of 'Not wanted on Voyage'.....

I am, by nature, a bit of a hoarder and quite happily collect people with the right name and place of birth - to be filed and possibly welcomed into the fold at a later date. What I really ought to do is either a) desist in this habit or b) put a different reference field in for ease of later access. 

I have, of course, done neither of these things with my extra Legges so I'm treating them as unwanted interlopers and deleting them. 

I may be some time.....

More soon.